By Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) – A candidate in Algeria’s presidential election has alleged irregularities in the vote count, with results due later on Sunday expected to give President Abdulmadjid Tebboune a second term in office.
Saturday’s election drew little enthusiasm from voters, with preliminary turnout figures of 48% in the contest between Tebboune and Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, a moderate Islamist, and Youcef Aouchiche, a secularist.
Hassani Cherif’s campaign said polling station officials had been pressured to inflate results and alleged failures to deliver vote-sorting records to candidates’ representatives, as well as instances of proxy group voting.
It did not say whether it believed the violations had affected the result and Reuters could not immediately reach Tebboune’s or Aouchiche’s campaign for comment or the electoral commission.
Analysts have said Tebboune looks all but certain to win the vote.
His re-election would mean Algeria likely keeping on with a governing programme that has resumed lavish social spending based on increased energy revenues after he came into office in 2019 following a period of lower oil prices.
He has promised to raise unemployment benefits, pensions and public housing programmes, all of which he increased during his first term as president.
First elected during the mass “hirak” (movement) protests that forced his veteran predecessor Abdulaziz Bouteflika from power after 20 years, Tebboune has backed a tough approach from the security forces, which have jailed prominent dissidents.
His election in 2019 reflected the anti-establishment mood in Algeria that year, with turnout of 40%, far below the levels of previous national votes.
The protests, which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets every week for more than a year demanding an end to corruption and the ousting of the ruling elite, were finally curtailed by the COVID pandemic.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi, writing by Angus McDowall, editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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